Saturday, November 25, 2006

so, you CAN teach an old dog new tricks

But it'll really mess up her gauge.I've got some repetitive motion stress injury in my right arm. Not saying knitting's the culprit but it definitely aggravates things.

My solution to move differently is knitting continental. Easily said. Slower going. Purling OK, knit, not so much. In the end, when my elbow and hand are better, I'll settle on the combination style that Annie Modesitt promotes, its most natural to me, and I already knit through the back by habit.

The garment taking the hit was my first version of Swell. I can't show, I ripped too quickly, but I'll tell. I started it in blue with a black wave. I reassessed. Aside from the, ahh, lets say homey-ness of uneven gauge from left handed knitting, there were issues.

Too masculine for the giftee I had in mind. She and I have talked about how when the weather gets colder, we find ourselves wearing boy clothes. The black wave was handsome but just too. Also, the pattern has the first rows with ear flaps attached as purl completely around, creating a non-roll front forehead (good) but a ridge through the earflaps (not so). You can barely see it on the pattern but on mine, it looked like the earflaps were an afterthought. And my row gauge was longer so the wave placed too high. Applying my three strikes and you rip rule, its history.